When I joined LinkedIn in 2004 I was not in a situation where I personally needed to be found, but I did want my company to be found, so I invested in building my profile around my company. In 2015 that changed and I embarked on a completely different strategy.
Why did you look at my LinkedIn profile?
I get asked this question frequently and my answer is always the same:
Sorry, but I don’t remember
When I do research for my own activities or for my clients, LinkedIn is now the primary source of information on companies as well as on individuals. I therefore look at many companies and personal profiles on an almost daily basis. Unfortunately I cannot always remember why I looked at a particular profile and even if I could, then I usually cannot reveal exactly what the research mission is or was.
I could obviously hide my identity when doing research, but as you will see below I have no reason for doing so. Rather, it may be to my advantage to leave my footprint behind.
I get around 600 visits to my own profile on a weekly basis and I obviously don’t have the time to ask each of them why they looked at my profile. I also don’t see why I should ask – I welcome every visit irrespective of the reason. If people want to get in touch with me they can find my contact information on my LinkedIn profile and write me, tweet me or call me. (Quite a few people do so, which I enjoy – thank you!!)
Why are we on LinkedIn?
When LinkedIn opened the doors in May 2003 (I joined in January 2004) people didn’t know why they should join and how they should use the platform. Most treated LinkedIn as an electronic version of their current personal network and only connected with people they had met and knew from the physical world. I did that too until I asked myself the question “Why?”
Why am I on LinkedIn and what do I want to achieve with my presence?
Asking this question led me to THE fundamental question:
Do I want to be found?
When I joined LinkedIn in 2004 I was not in a situation where I personally needed to be found, but I did want my company to be found, so I invested in building my profile around my company.
LinkedIn made me a bestselling author
In 2012 I published my first book and that changed my agenda completely. Now I really wanted to be found, so that my potential readers could find my book and read it (I didn’t, and still don’t, charge for my first book). As I write books for commercial professionals in the information technology and software industry, LinkedIn is probably the best place to be found without having to invest millions in promotional activities.
Optimizing my presence on LinkedIn with the objective of being found by commercial professionals in the information technology and software industry forced me to answer four additional questions:
- How do I make it easy for my potential readers to find me?
- What impression do I want to make on my visitors?
- What immediate value can I provide my visitors?
- What do I want my visitors to do after visiting my profile?
I now have a very clear strategy and plan for my LinkedIn activities that I will not share with you today, but I can tell you that it works extremely well. My recent book is an Amazon #1 bestseller and I can only thank LinkedIn for that.
